Monthly Archives: October 2009

Well, folks, it’s time to wrap up “El Santo vs. The Vampire Women” month. I reckon that, by now, you’re downright sick of any ladies with pointy canine. You are very tempted to wash out your mouth with listerine because you can almost taste the hemoglobin. You are tempted to say, “Santo, vampire women suck! And that is totally not a pun about them being vampires … or a double entendre, for that matter!”

Such is the menace of the vampire women. Their powers warp the minds of mere mortals.

In case you’re just tuning in, here’s a list of webcomics featuring vampire women that I covered in the month of October:

To coin a phrase that a famed mathematician of vampiric descent once said: “Nine! Nine

Ah ah ah ah ah!

webcomics about vampire women! Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!” *thunder, lightning*

So what did we learn from this experience?

Vampire women — despite doing creepy things like breaking into your house, talking to shrubbery, playing in reality shows, and eating Count Chocula drenched in human blood — are no different than you or me. They have urges, dreams, and a nasty habit of living for up to two to three millennia. Get to know your vampire women. There are many kinds. They range from schoolgirls to girls who go to school. In the best case scenario, befriending your local vampire can win you a powerful ally in the inevitable vampire armageddon. But, if all else fails, go ahead an stake them through the heart.

A couple of shout outs to a couple of webcomics I had considered covering but for some reason or other didn’t make the cut:

Bite Me! – This famous webcomic by Dylan Meconis deals with a group of vampires who live during the French Revolution. While the cover does show a vampire woman waving the French flag to lead the revolt, it turns out that this webcomic was more of an ensemble piece. The ironclad rule that I set for myself must not be broken!

Youngbloods – I know what you’re thinking, but no… this isn’t that one superhero comic where beefy guys with no feet have names like “Badrock” and “Riptide.” This does, in fact, feature a vampire woman. There aren’t many webcomics featuring Black characters in the main character role. There are even fewer webcomics with a predominantly African American cast. Which is why Youngbloods caught my eye: it featured a young Black girl in the inner city caught up in a violent vampire gang war. I only found out about it this week, though, and at 188 pages I didn’t think I’d be able to read through the whole webcomic before October was through.

Who’s That Girl?

If you were wondering who the gal in my makeshift “El Santo vs. The Vampire Women” banner was,

Possibly a vampire woman.

wonder no longer. She is wrestling valet Shelly Martinez. When Shelley was in the indies, she went as “Halloween Barbie,” who I assumed was a vampire. I never watched her in action the, so I can’t confirm or deny, though. WWE fans remember her as the vampire Ariel, who debuted as a valet to Kevin Thorn. It’s this gimmick that’s being portrayed in the banner pic. She was also seen in TNA Wrestling playing the part of Salina, who was not a vampire. Recently, she quit that role to star in some Italian movies. Wrestling star and movie star? Sounds like she’s having a very El Santo career.

But seriously…

… thank you, everyone, for checking out the “El Santo vs. The Vampire Women” series. I’d like to think I introduced quite a few of the lesser known webcomics out there for folks who are in the mood for horror… even though most of the time it was the lighter side of horror. It’s an experiment I wouldn’t mind repeating again.

Interestingly, while searching out comics featuring vampire women, I ran across a comment on Websnark where the poster mentioned that he was surprised that there weren’t many vampire comics. That was probably true when he posted back in 2007. Nowadays, though, we got vampire comics coming out the wazoo! And with vampire in media going through a huge resurgence, there’s probably more to come.

Bonus

And well, since this is Halloween, here’s a bonus video. I’d considered posting the trailer for the movie “Santo vs. The Vampire Women.” However, luchador movies are actually very difficult to watch, even for fans of bad movies like myself. The trailer was just a bunch of vampire women slowly emergine from their coffins and blinking menacingly. It’s very appropriate for this month’s theme, but it’s also very boring.

Trust me… this video is much more awesome by several magnitudes. It features luchadors (namely La Parka, the overweight luchador who dresses up as a skeleton), sexy women, and the Thriller (complete with Michael Jackson impersonator):

Like this:

November is NaNoWriMo month! Even if you aren’t one of those starry-eyed hopefuls churning away at putting out a 50k novel, there are many other ways to challenge yourself. Heck, maybe we should just rename the month “National Challenge Yourself Month” (NaChaYouMo), no?

There’s a blog version of NaNoWriMo, for example, that challenges bloggers to write 50k words in a month. (Which is a far, FAR easier task than the novel thing.)

And then there’s Darcie Frederick of Later, Watch The World End. Darcie has taken on the challenge of writing a new strip of her comic for each day of the month for a total of 30 new strips at the end. She writes: “The concentrated time will, I hope, push me further artistically.”

Frankly, I think it’s a great idea, and more useful than writing a novel that, in a compressed time frame, will likely turn out terrible. Thirty pages in quick succession, which is close to what folks at Marvel and DC churn out in a month, have a better chance of turning out to be good.

Anyway, I browsed through Later, and it’s a very serene and contemplative look at a post-apocalyptic world where folks wander through the sparse, moody landscapes in utter loneliness. It’s definitely different and worth checking out.

Like this:

Joshua Smeaton recently sent me a request to review his comic, Haunted. After reading the first two issues, I had to admit that it looked all sorts of fantastic. Crisp art, stuff about a haunted house, kids smashing things up … long story short, it looks great.

I won’t be able to review it for a while (got a long list that should keep me busy for most of November), but that shouldn’t stop you… especially if you need something to curl up to on Halloween night when you’re sitting in the sincerest pumpkin patch in the neighborhood. Haunted recently won the Xeric Award. It will soon be available in graphic novel format, where the black-and-white pages in the last couple of issues will be rendered in glorious color.

Like this:

My Immortal, a webcomic by someone who goes by Chazie, stars a vampire named Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way. I know what you’re thinking, but no… despite the name, Ebony Way is not a person of African descent. In fact, she is very pale. Ebony is a seventeen-year-old vampire, and like many vampires her age, she loves Hot Topic and dresses in a black corset, fishnets, and combat boots.

Also, she goes to school in England. Namely, a little place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

As the “real” Harry Potter himself explains at the beginning of the webcomic, My Immortal is a fanfiction. Or rather, it is based on a notoriously bad fanfiction written by xxxbloodyrists666xxx. So, yes, dear reader, for my concluding “El Santo vs. The Vampire Women” review, you are in fact reading a post written by El Santo about a webcomic created by Chazie based on a fan fiction written by xxxbloodyrists666xxx which in turn was based on a series written by J. K. Rowling. Will you find any other review with this many levels of absolute raw talent? I think not!

My Immortal: The Comic — not to be confused with My Immortal: The Fanfic, My Immortal: The Song, or My Immortal: the Actual Immortal — has thus far serialized Chapters 1 through 9 of the original 22 Chapter fanfic. (EDIT: I was wrong. It turns out the original is a whopping 44 chapters.) While this sounds like dumptrucks full of fanfic, Chazie limits each chapter to one page. The truncated storytelling eliminates a few essential story elements (my favorite being Dumbledore yelling, “They were having sexual intercourse in the Forbidden Forest!”), but for the most part, what you read in the fanfic is what you see in the story … with a few MST3K-like modifications to help My Immortal go down easy.

Fellow webcomic blogger Lauren Davis (of Storming the Tower and io9) ran across this site and sent me a link via Twitter. Apparently, the double-fisted characters heroes on the page reminded her of yours truly. The image was too awesome not to share. I have to give a big hand to Alexis Ziritt and Mark Malazarte for accurately portraying the secret of the luchador: when we’re not ridding the world of monsters and mad scientists, we’re romancing the sexy women. Such is the life.

Like this:

The creatively spelled Last Res0rt is probably the oddest vampire woman-themed webcomics I’ve come across. First of all, our main character, who has the unlikely name of Jigsaw Forte, isn’t just a vampire woman … she’s a furry vampire woman. What sort of animal she represents is not apparent, though most characters here seem to be some sort of hybrid chimera. Second of all, the webcomic takes place in a science fiction setting. Finally, it’s a bout a reality show where prisoners have to fight each other for their chance at freedom. So, in summary, it’s a sci-fi/horror webcomic about a reality show starring a furry female vampire. And also sailor scouts. It’s almost like creator Rachel Keslensky put all her interests into a blender, pressed the “Puree” button, and boom, there’s Last Res0rt.

The story starts with Jigsaw applying for the position of “Executioner,” who keep the criminals in check during the game (a reality show called “Last Resort”). Cypress, a crocodile lady with pretty hair and the show’s producer, has her doubts. Jigsaw doesn’t look like much, being a member of a harmless looking species that looks like a cross between a house cat and an Ewok. The only thing she has in her favor is a guitar case, which everyone assumes contains a gun of some sort.

Cypress changes her mind, though, when she catches Jigsaw’s extreme case of red-eye. It is not, as you may expect, a result of too much chlorine in the pool, but is one of the surefire indicators of vampirism.

Danielle Dark, a webcomic by Jay Bradley, starts with our title character leaving the romantic, scenic, and culturally inventive city of San Francisco for a city that’s pretty much the polar opposite: Indianapolis. And with how well the Colts are doing, who can blame her? And, uh … there’s the Indy 500? (Holy crap, I just realized a racecar driving vampire on the Indy circuit would be a great idea for a webcomic!)

Danielle must move because if she stays in one place too long, someone might notice that she doesn’t age and you can only use the “plastic surgery” excuse so many times (though I’d think that would apply more to SoCal than the Bay Area). And with the emergence of Web 2.0, she has to be more vigilant about secrecy than ever.

Danielle however is taking a risk going to Indianapolis because she’s been there before. There’s a chance she might run into someone who recognizes her. But the city also has old friends. She runs into an couple of long-lived witch acquaintances at a Warlock’s Coffee (snarf snarf), where carrying a punch card means you are one of the damned. These witches practice White Magic, which makes them the Jedis of the haunted community. There’s Berniece, who is 470 years old and Talia, who’s 650 years old, takes Danielle in, and wears unholy gobs of Tammy Faye Baker clown make-up.

While not as old — compared to her friends, Danielle is young at 150 years — Indianapolis’ ties are strengthened by powerful memories. Once upon a time, she grew up tall and she grew up right as an Indiana girl on an Indiana night. This was the city where she was first turned into a vampire. This was the city where her husband was murdered.

Wil Wheaton (a.k.a. TV’s Wesley) was styling a Penny Arcade shirt on last night’s episode of The Big Bang Theory. Specifically, the Fruit F***er shirt. I have no idea who this character is, but judging by the name, it adequately belongs on a man who is occupying 6th place on Sheldon’s “Most Hated” list (just above “Joe Schumacher”). Wil Wheaton would eventually best Sheldon at his own pseudo-Magic: The Gathering game, denying our resident physicist his vengeance and causing him to howl a curse unto the heavens: “Wheeeaattoonnn! WHEAAATTTTONNNNN!!!!”

Frankly, I’m not sure I’m man enough to say I’m wearing a shirt that I saw on The Big Bang Theory, but I admit that I’m very fond of the Capsaicin Molecule shirt. Many more shirts featured on the show can be found at Sheldonshirts.com.